I. Opponents of astrology.—Astrology, as we have seen, was very popular. Yet there was some scepticism as to its truth beyond the ridicule of satirists, who perhaps at bottom were themselves believers in the art. Outside of Christian writers the three chief opponents of astrology in the Roman world, judging by the works that have come down to us, were—Cicero who lived before the Empire in the constitutional sense can be said to have begun—in his De Divinatione; Favorinus, a Gaul who resided at Rome in the reigns of Hadrian and Trajan, and was a friend of Plutarch, and whose arguments against astrology have been preserved only in the pages of Aulus Gellius; and Sextus Empiricus, a physician who flourished at about the beginning of the third century of our era.[1]
When, however, we come to examine both the men and their arguments, we somehow do not find their assault upon astrology especially impressive or satisfactory. First, as to the men. Gellius says that he heard Favorinus make the speech the substance of which he repeats, but that he is unable to state whether the philosopher really meant what he said or argued merely in order to exercise and to display his genius.[2] There was reason for this perplexity of Gel-
- ↑ For the arguments of Favorinus, see Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae, bk. xiv; ch. 1. (Delphin & Variorum Classics [1824] ex editione Jacob! Gronovii.) Fragments of Favorinus's writings are also to be found in Stobæus.
The edition of the Opera of Sextus Empiricus which I used was that by Johannes Albertus Fabricus, (Lipsiae, 1718), giving the Greek text and a Latin translation.
For Cicero's arguments, see De Divinatione, bk. ii, chs. 42-47. - ↑ "Adversum istos qui sese chaldseos seu genethliacos appellant, ac de motu deque positu stellarum dicere posse, quae futura sunt, profitentur, audivimus quondam Favorinum philosophum Romae Graece disserentem egregia atque illustri oratione; exercendine autem, anne ostentandi gratia ingenii, an quod ita serio judicatoque existamaret, non habeo dicere. Noctes Atticae, bk. xiv, ch. 1, sect. 1. A foot-note in the
